The hacker who rigged radio contests to win a Porsche

The story

Kevin Poulsen, known by the alias Dark Dante, had spent years learning how the telephone network worked from the inside. By 1990 he was on the run from the FBI over earlier break-ins.

On June 1, 1990, Los Angeles radio station KIIS-FM ran a contest giving a Porsche to a particular caller. Poulsen and his associates had access to the phone company computers that controlled the station’s incoming lines. They blocked other calls so that Poulsen’s would be the one that got through.

He won the car. Prosecutors later said the group used the same method on more than one station and more than one contest, winning a second Porsche, cash and trips to Hawaii.

Poulsen was eventually arrested and served more than four years in prison. After his release he became a journalist covering computer security.

Why it mattered

The contest looked fair to everyone listening, and the station had no idea its phone lines were being steered from outside. It showed that the systems behind an ordinary business service could be quietly controlled by someone who never set foot in the building. At the time, few companies thought of the phone network as something that could be hacked at all.

The lesson today

Contest callers assumed the phone lines were fair. They had no way of knowing that someone else controlled the switch. Phone systems are computers too. Business phone systems need the same care as any other system: limited admin access, current software and someone who notices when settings change.